Torque strut dog bone poly rebuild using GM teeth (Page 1/1)
Skybax JUN 18, 10:26 PM
Just wanted to share what I did with my early style (86) dog bone overhaul. The new poly bushings come with their own metal sleeve. I've read several complaints over the years of them making noise after install due to new replacement sleeve moving slightly. That happens for 3 reasons...

1. Sleeve slightly shorter in length and doesn't matter how much you tighten down cause bushing interferes
2. There are no teeth on the ends of new sleeves like the GM ones to bite into mounts to prevent movement
3. You have to get new bolts for new sleeves cause original GM bolts will have too much movement inside sleeve

If the new replacement sleeve was same length or slightly longer than GM sleeve, the easy solution would be to cut teeth into the ends of the new sleeves, but since its already too short that won't work. The other solution is to put the original GM sleeves into the new poly bushings, but problem is the new poly bushing hole is smaller in diameter (original slight larger than 11/16 and new one slightly smaller than 11/16)

So the easiest solution for me for best results was to bore out the new bushing to fit the original GM sleeves, and this also allows you to use the original bolts. Since I don't have a drill bit that is slightly larger than 11/16 and didn't want to butcher them up, I took them to a local machine shop I used over the years and he was able to bore them out perfectly on machine lathe...





[This message has been edited by Skybax (edited 06-18-2021).]

theogre JUN 19, 12:41 AM
Is nice.

One issue is the bolts etc are Class 10.9 to handle the torque spec.
The problem is almost no-one bothers to even try to look up the spec and treat as normal bolt.

Worse, Using a "standard" short ⅜" rachet handles etc is near impossible to torque them properly w/ OE tooth end sleeve. Then replace w/ cheap smooth pipe to replace the OE and will have problems. More obvious w/ slotted holes but can move and "wallow out" round holes too.

Far worse, some fools get polly lube, anti-seize, etc. on the hardware faces that make more problems.
"Dog bones," Cradle sets and some others Do Not need "polly grease" because they won't move.
When you use anti-seize, only "grease" the middle where sleeve live.

And isn't just "dog bones" but any suspension bushings w/ "upgrade" to polly.

Nearly All New Polly sleeve is shorter then polly hole. When bolts are torque right, think "they" indented the polly should compress to fit the sleeve.
In a "dog bone" w/ big polly and often odd shape bracket can't compress and sleeve can slid easy.

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